Microsoft Interview – Things happen when you are least expected…

Sometime in summer of 2008, I send an application to Microsoft as a reply to an email from a recruiter who happened to visit our CS Department. I didn’t even expect them to get back to me simply because of the fact that my experiences are based on Java platform. But I got a reply back from recruiter with an email including application for me fill and send back to them. I filled it but there was an interesting question in that application which was

“Are there any specific Microsoft products that you are most interested in that match your current skills and qualifications? If so, please list and explain why.”

My answer was…

Microsoft .C#, As a Java Developer Microsoft C# is the closest jave like application that Microsoft ever produced. I have had some exposure to C# and would like to explore more about it.

I thought I would never hear back from them after they read my answer but couple of days I got an email from the recruiter asking a time slot to setup an interview. I was bit surprise but I have done many first round and second round interview while I was looking for jobs right after my undergrad. So I did the the phone interview and it was with the recruiter and had few Analytical type question.

After the interview I thought interview went pretty well and i had evidence to back it up with the positive comments by the recruiter. Few days later I got an email for the second round interview which was semi technical good thing about it was very general so I didn’t have to worry about providing answers related to C or C# or C++. I thought that interview also went pretty well. Then I didn’t hear anything until October and quite frankly I wasn’t even paying attention for a reply from them. But during first week of October I got an email from the recruiter asking possible dates to arrange next round interview where they are going to fly me down to Seattle, Microsoft Headquarters.

So now the next step, but the problem here is hard not to stay in an unexpected mode when you come this far but I am going to try…